This week, try to pay attention to how your teacher asks questions and facilitates discussion in his or her classes. What types of questions does your CT ask? Are most of the questions asking students to relay facts or textbook definitions (recall) or to apply a concept to a new situation or compare it to another concept (application or analysis). Does your teacher ever encourage his or her students to be critical or skeptical? If so, when and how? Does your CT ever ask students to provide evidence to support a claim or explain their thinking? Does your teacher facilitate classroom discussion so that students are expressing scientific ideas to other students? Finally, does your CT vary the type of questions he or she asks depending on the level of the class, or the perceived ability of the student? Remember to reflect on what types of classroom discourse you want to foster in your classroom, how you will go about doing this, and why.
Observations:
This morning at Narragansett High School, I observed two different physics classes. The first class was an advanced freshman physical science class. There are 22 students in this class. At first, Mrs. C went over the information from the previous class, and asked students as a group what the answers to the homework were. The students seemed to have no problems with answering the homework questions. Next the class did a lab on frictional forces. The lab was from another physics book and consisted of the students sliding sneakers across different types of surfaces to find the coefficient of friction. The students did not all do this simple lab correctly because they did not read the directions. The second class was a collaborative freshman physical science class. These students were first assigned a new seating plan at the beginning of class, in hopes to better their behavior, and then spent the remainder going over questions from the text and filling in a table on velocity and acceleration. Because this is a lower level science class, and there are many students with special needs in the class, Mrs. C framed her questions more simply. The generally were yes/no or a numerical answer rather than an in-depth analysis. Reflections:
For the advanced class, Mrs. C figured that the students would know how to read and follow the directions for the lab. I too believe that every one of these students has that ability, however they did not apply it. I think that the students needed a little reminder, that following directions in a lab is part of being a scientist, part of their grade, and is expected of them. I think this comment may have prevented their laziness in terms of following direction. The students in this class can handle more in-depth questions and are able to work through multiple problems; however the collaborative class seems to have more difficulty with this. Many of the students were not paying attention to the teacher, and many of them would simply say “I don’t know” as an answer to her questions. It seemed to me that the students did everything to avoid thinking about the topic being discussed. This class does make me think about the differentiation that needs to take place. It also makes me realize that you cannot force a student to understand information you teach them, you have to make them motivated to learn by tapping into what interests them, and this I do not think happened in this particular class.
Class:Physical science
Grade: 9th and 10th
Observed by: Haley Winsor
Observations:
This morning at Narragansett High School, I observed two different physics classes. The first class was an advanced freshman physical science class. There are 22 students in this class. At first, Mrs. C went over the information from the previous class, and asked students as a group what the answers to the homework were. The students seemed to have no problems with answering the homework questions. Next the class did a lab on frictional forces. The lab was from another physics book and consisted of the students sliding sneakers across different types of surfaces to find the coefficient of friction. The students did not all do this simple lab correctly because they did not read the directions. The second class was a collaborative freshman physical science class. These students were first assigned a new seating plan at the beginning of class, in hopes to better their behavior, and then spent the remainder going over questions from the text and filling in a table on velocity and acceleration. Because this is a lower level science class, and there are many students with special needs in the class, Mrs. C framed her questions more simply. The generally were yes/no or a numerical answer rather than an in-depth analysis.
Reflections:
For the advanced class, Mrs. C figured that the students would know how to read and follow the directions for the lab. I too believe that every one of these students has that ability, however they did not apply it. I think that the students needed a little reminder, that following directions in a lab is part of being a scientist, part of their grade, and is expected of them. I think this comment may have prevented their laziness in terms of following direction. The students in this class can handle more in-depth questions and are able to work through multiple problems; however the collaborative class seems to have more difficulty with this. Many of the students were not paying attention to the teacher, and many of them would simply say “I don’t know” as an answer to her questions. It seemed to me that the students did everything to avoid thinking about the topic being discussed. This class does make me think about the differentiation that needs to take place. It also makes me realize that you cannot force a student to understand information you teach them, you have to make them motivated to learn by tapping into what interests them, and this I do not think happened in this particular class.
Class:Physical science
Grade: 9th and 10th
Observed by: Haley Winsor